Anyone who can read the sidebar on my website knows who I support for the 2008 presidential election. However, there’s one person I support more than any political candidate: the American voter. As a geek, I’m sick of hearing excuses for why we can’t build a functional voting machine. As a Christian, I’m sick of hearing excuses for why the poor must remain voiceless.

Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy Jr. just put out this video which helps spotlight some of the areas we need to fix with our voting system.

Steal Back Your Vote! from Greg Palast on Vimeo.

The electric bike has become a regular part of life for me now… but repetitive jolts to the hindquarters don’t have to be.

The Myxercycle was made possible by the folks over at Myxer. Go with it!

If you want to try one of these bike kits, check ‘em out over at electricrider.com

My good friend Whitney Hoffman just stitched together a really cool photo show from some Obama rallies… and she laid it all down on top of “Join The Conversation“. Check it out!

And yes, I want one of those Obama cookies. Mmm, smells like Hope.

I swear, there is an epidemic of Stupid going around the new media marketing world. Or maybe it was always there and I simply didn’t notice until now.

Recently an indie label added me to their mailing list without my permission (Stupid #1). Their mailings don’t have any unsubscribe link (Stupid #2), forcing me to reply and ask to be taken off their list. This amount of stupid is typical, baseline Stupid, usually doesn’t bother me. Unfortunately, they had advanced Stupid.

Then the label argues with me via email (Stupid #3) and tells me that “If you don’t want someone sending you an email without asking, then you should not post your email on the web.” As though they were sending me an email as opposed to just adding me to a list. Not feeling sufficiently stupid yet, they then have the balls to throw this at me:

I would be glad to take you off the list, but I don’t know how to do that without taking up several hours of my time, which is rather short, since I run two for-profit businesses and a non-profit organization.
(Stupid #4)

Another savvy marketer has added me to a list and is CC-ing everyone on the list- meaning I can see all their addresses and they can see mine (Stupid #5).

This morning I found the last straw. Yet another music marketing company had been sending me emails about bands since I produce the High Orbit Podcast. Initially they added me to their mailing list without permission, but I’ll overlook that for now. They typically sent me one or two emails a month.

Then there were more.

Fast forward to the present and I’m getting damn near daily emails from these people (Stupid #6). Yesterday it got so bad they sent me two emails in one day about the same damn band (Stupid #7). This is getting ridiculous, so I asked to be taken off the list (oh yeah, no unsubscribe link again. Back to stupid #2).

Once again, I’m getting argued with via email (Stupid #3 again):

You know Matthew, I’ve had you up on my MySpace top friends for awile (sic) now trying to toss you a bone.

Apparantly (sic) your (sic) not as smart as you look.

So not only can they not spell (Stupid #8) but they think that insulting me will somehow make me change my mind about supporting their bands (Stupids #9-47)?

To all of you stricken with The Stupid lately… Grab a clue from the artists you represent: If people don’t want your emails, you don’t want to send to them. If you’re a rock band, you don’t want to force your way onstage at a country bar. All you’re going to do is turn someone who was ambivalent into someone who actively works against you.

We as Americans face difficult economic years ahead. So what?

Once upon a time a young prince named JFK proposed a voyage to the moon. No one knew how we would get there. Throughout the voyage we endured a money- and life-draining foreign war, a faltering economy, constant saber-rattling with Russia, and the assassination of three of our most inspiring leaders. With the exception of the latter, we’re in the same boat now as we were in the 1960’s.

So there we were- broke, bleeding, and bound for the moon. Because of our ability to focus on a unified vision, we somehow survived. We shot, landed, and brought back souvenirs from the moon like Velcro, advanced food preservation, advanced electronics, a new understanding of of our universe, microwave ovens, and mylar. Oh, and some rocks.

We created hundreds of thousands of American jobs and created new industries. We invented technologies that spread to the rest of the world. These jobs and technologies didn’t necessarily put men on the moon either, they made models. They assembled lunch boxes and action figures. They marketed the image of the astronaut as a rock star comparable to the Beatles (who also broke up during this period).

We have a bright future ahead of us. It may not be a voyage to the moon, but as Barack Obama has suggested, it may be a voyage to energy independence. Imagine the jobs, technologies, and prestige we can build with American hands if we commit ourselves to clean power.

It’s astounding the talents you develop when one half of your face is numb.

From President Washington. The guy on the green thing you leave as a tip at Starbucks. The guy my home state was named after. I caught this in an opinion piece by Glenn Beck:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
President George Washington

(By the way, the Glenn Beck piece actually kinda sucks, but the Washington Quote is great.)